New Awards To Compete With Nobel Prizes

Tsalg writes "The Nobel prizes will soon have company. Fred Kavli, a Norwegian physicist, is funding new awards in the fields of astrophysics, neuroscience and nanotechnology. Kavli already funds several think tanks both in the U.S. and abroad, and intends the awards to help 'spread the word of science and get more students interested', as 'in many parts of the world that's a problem, from Norway to the United States...'"

Comments

The problem

[grasshoppa]

The problem isn't student's lack of interest, it's the lack of support from the government at the highest levels trickling down. Were I going to choose a major today, I would steer clear of anything having to do with programming, for fear of being sued for writing "hello world", given all the fun fun stuff our government ( US ) is doing in the patent/dmca area.

If our governments, US in particular, were to make science a priority ( real science. Not Bush science ), then we'd see interest in the student body. Not soon, but it'd happen.

Re:The problem

[Peldor]

Come on. Everyone knows the easiest way to get kids interested in something is to forbid it. Bush is just craftier than you think.

Re:The problem

[The Queen]

Exactly. Look how well his abstinence policies are working in our schools. ;-)

Re:The problem

[RealAlaskan]

The problem isn't student's lack of interest, it's the lack of support from the government at the highest levels ...

I'd argue that lack of preparation at the lowest levels has a lot to do with it, followed by lack of appreciation on the job.

The K-12 education system is a mess. Unfortunately, it isn't broken: it's working roughly as designed. It keeps the kids warehoused and off the labor market until age 18, which keeps unemployment rate down and the labor unions happy. It keeps the teachers' union strong. It provides free babysitting, which keeps the parents happy. It even provides a smattering of education to the children of the middle class, though that's only because of a few dedicated teachers who are doing their best to subvert the system.

It isn't a matter of money: every country which outscores us on standardized tests spends less money per student than we do. In 1998, the average per student expenditure for U.S. elementary and high schools was roughly the same as the per student expenditure at Harvard (NOT the tuition, but Harvard's expenditure).

The experience of recent immigrants suggests that cultural expectations are a big part of the problem: immigrants from the Caribbean usually do significantly better in school than American blacks in the same schools. Immigrants from China and Russia usually excel in the same schools in which American students avoid education. American schools foster an anti-intellectual culture which rewards ``students'' with popularity for almost anything but academic success.

Homeschoolers are educating their children to far higher standards than any public school, and at far less cost. While American public schools are spending over $7,000 per student, most homeshcoolers are spending less than $1,000 per student. That means they are spending roughly 1/10 the money, to get far better results. One big reason they are able to do this is is that they are able to socialize their children, in contrast to the public, warehouse schools, which anti-socialize them. Homeschooled children spend every day in society, seeing how adults value and reward work and learning. It's no wonder that they learn a very different lesson than the children in the warehouse schools.

Why are young Americans choosing any field but engineering and science? A big part of it is that the public schools don't prepare them adequately for anything, but especially not for the sciences. After teaching calculus to American engineering students at a competitive state university, I can say that even American engineering students are abysmally ill-prepared in math.

Then there's the problem of the reward on the job: why would any sensible person want to go into a field which requires long hours of hard study in school, followed by longer hours of harder work on the job, and rewards it with relatively low pay? Anyone who could make a good living as an engineer could make a much better living in something like financial engineering, accounting or actuary science, and the hours would be no worse.

Third, engineering is an ``up or out'' profession: after 5 to 10 years, most engineers are unemployable, since fresh graduates are available to do the same work (so their management thinks) for less money. Engineers who don't move into management eventually get laid off, and wind up flipping burgers. Why not coast through business school and go directly into management? You wind up in the same position, with less work and higher lifetime earnings.

If you become an engineer, you will work for managers who really believe that an engineer fresh out of school is better than an experienced engineer, because he's cheaper. Your management will sooner or later follow that to the logical conclusion that the engineer in China is ten times better than you, because he's ten times cheaper.

I got an engineering degree twenty years ago, but I never worked as an engineer, and today I'm an economist. What I've written abo

Re:The problem

[sjwaste]

I disagree. It has nothing to do with government support. The goverment pumps tons of money into the sciences by way of defense contracts. We spend a LOT of money on research and development.

The reason nobody's picking these majors and making a career out of it is that despite all the government spending, the jobs don't pay enough to make it worthwhile. I mean, if it takes 6-8 years to get your PhD in one of the hard sciences only to come out and make 60k a year, why not get a BBA and start at 50? In those 6 years, you'll be doing much better than the science PhD. (note, this is a general statement, does not apply to every case)

Re:The problem

[grasshoppa]

The K-12 education system is a mess. Unfortunately, it isn't broken: it's working roughly as designed. It keeps the kids warehoused and off the labor market until age 18, which keeps unemployment rate down and the labor unions happy. It keeps the teachers' union strong. It provides free babysitting, which keeps the parents happy. It even provides a smattering of education to the children of the middle class, though that's only because of a few dedicated teachers who are doing their best to subvert the system.

No arguments here. My mother is a teacher, I see what she has to go through to get even a box of pencils. If you look at most government organizations relating to children, it's frighteningly unbelievable, what we put our little ones through. Look at the adoption program sometime. Education is simply a casualty in a much large problem.

Quite frankly, you are right. Every single word, I agree with. However, I was commenting towards a much smaller subset of problems than you are speaking about.

Re:The problem

[pmjordan]

Actually, I think, speaking as a Computational Physics student, the problem of lack of interest does exist, and lies a lot earlier than when it comes to choosing a subject to study at university.

At least in Europe, there doesn't seem to be enough mathematical education in primary school and early secondary school to allow later science courses at school to even spark interest. For most of the people on my course that I've talked to, university physics is nothing like the physics they did at school, primarily because they completely lacked the mathematical foundations. I'm not saying teach calculus to 10-year olds, but some 18-year olds who have been at school all their life can't multiply fractions, not because of lack of intelligence (there would not be any point recruiting those cases for university anyway, sorry) but simply because they were never taught it. Of course they're not going to want to study a maths-heavy science, because it seems incredibly daunting.

I don't think this is specific to one or two countries, let alone particular political factions, but (at the very least) something that the entire Western society faces. Educational institutions and teachers are slowly doing the jobs that used to be the parents' responsibilities. No wonder they have no time for real teaching.

Increases in investment into science probably would help, I don't disagree with you on that point. However, I think attacking the root of the problem, early education, would be a much more effective use of resources. If there is enough inherent interest, additional funding for science can go into research rather than recruitment.

By the way, I don't claim to have a practical solution to the problem, but I think the problem hasn't even been identified properly yet by the scientific community. As a member of the Institute of Physics, I constantly get information about this and that campaign to raise science awareness among teenagers and young adults. I believe these attempts at solving the problem are fundamentally flawed in their short-sightedness.

Let's face it, science is never going to be 'cool' to the masses. Instead, let's encourage those who have a natural interest in the subject.

~phil

Re:The problem

[jtpalinmajere]

To be fair, I should point out that the 'safe sex' policies lauded by prior administrations weren't exactly effective either. Better to try something new that doesn't work than stick with the same old that hasn't been working for decades.

On another note, any increase in student sex activity trends in the past few decades should be noted as 'documented' sex activity (ie. that which a student admits to or gets caught at). I guarantee you that when I was going to school there were more kids than I can count that I knew were having sex... even at the age of 12 to 14. It just wasn't something to brag about. Nowadays, student peers are finding sexuality more and more acceptable and are thus more likely to be open about their sexuality (and likely more active, which scares me).

I say all this to point out that maybe if all our students were spending less time making out during class, making babies in between and after class, and listening/watching to music/video that 'glamourizes' such behaviour, there might be room in their 'active' lifestyles to actually learn about and become interested in math, sciences, and the arts. A silly award is NOT what we need to revolutionize scientific popularity, it is a change in the entire social and academic atmosphere our kids grow up and learn in that will do the trick.

Re:The problem

[Vraylle]

As a former public school teacher, I have to ask you about your $/pupil analaysis...how many of those nations spending less money per student yet scoring higher on the tests are actually including ALL children, and not just the ones that have tested well for entrance, have no disabilities, etc.? My experience was that 75%-85% of educational resources are spent on "special needs" students. A big part of this is the notion that they should be included with "normal" children in "normal" classrooms. I'm not aware of any other countries that supposedly outperform us that do the same.

Re:The problem

[Vraylle]

Interesting that my comment was marked as flamebait...did I hit a bit too close to the mark, or was I unforgiveably rude in my wording?

Re:The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not coast through business school and go directly into management? You wind up in the same position, with less work and higher lifetime earnings.

That has traditionally been the case. However, we are starting to see some serious problems with these MBA intensive companies. The US has recently been paradise for folks with business, sales, legal skills. There is a real question whether that will remain the case.

Re:The problem

[szquirrel]

Homeschooled children spend every day in society, seeing how adults value and reward work and learning. It's no wonder that they learn a very different lesson than the children in the warehouse schools.

By definition, homeschooled children are taught at home by themselves or in small groups by a single parent or a handful of like-minded parents. Unless they spend their spare time working in a mall they aren't interacting with anywhere near the hundreds of other kids most public schoolers see on a daily basis.

As much as I'd like to believe that most homeschooled children are taught to be open-minded world travellers, the reverse is far more likely to be true. Most homeschooled children I've met are taught by parents who want to isolate them from what the parents see as harmful influences in public schools. That's not to say they're all xenophobic extremist zealots, but the majority are.

Sorry, please do go on about how bad public schools are.

Re:The problem

[RealAlaskan]

I don't know the answer to that.

I do know that Germany ``tracks'' students early. By about what would be middle school age here, the German kids' lives have been decided: either they are college material, or they're going into a trade. I think that most countries are closer to that system than to ours. Taiwan, for example, has high school entrance examinations, followed by college entrance exams. Both levels are highly competitive for the good schools.

I suspect that the U.S. practice of putting the disruptive and the incapable into the same class room with the capable and the brilliant is unique. Either way, what you're saying is that these other countries (e.g., Spain, Germany, Japan, Taiwan, France, et cetera) concentrate their resources on the students who are willing and able to benefit by them.

All of those countries have their share of economic and social problems, but many of them seem to have smaller and more tractable social problems than we do. Their economic problems don't seem to be caused by poor education to the extent ours are, either. No one seems to be suggesting that Germany's persistantly high unemployment rate, for example, could be solved by mainstreaming their retarded and their disruptive students, as we do, or by combining their trade schools with their gymnasiums, as we do.

So, yes, our high public school costs may have something to do with who we serve and how we serve them, but no, we don't seem to be any better off for the extra spending, neither economically nor socially. Furthermore, homeschoolers again are showing the way: learning disabled children who are homeschooled often wind up ahead of the U.S. median, and always at lower cost than the ineffective public child-warehouses. The problem isn't how much money we spend on the U.S. public schools, but how it's spent.

Re:The problem

[RealAlaskan]

Interesting that my comment was marked as flamebait...did I hit a bit too close to the mark, or was I unforgiveably rude in my wording?

I think it was unforgivably bad moderation, by a lousy moderator, who probably won't have the grace to be ashamed of himself.

Re:The problem

[mforbes]

then we'd see interest in the student body.

Oh, I don't know about that. I always had LOTS of interest in the student body when I was in school....

Re:The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

While American public schools are spending over $7,000 per student, most homeshcoolers are spending less than $1,000 per student. That means they are spending roughly 1/10 the money, to get far better results.

These figures ignore the cost of the homeschool teacher.

If there is already somebody available in your household to teach (e.g., there is already a stay-at-home adult), then the incremental cost for homeschooling is relatively small.

However, if homeschooling requires that an adult who would otherwise be adding income to the household teach instead, that cost has to be taken into account.

For many families, K-12 homeschooling is simply not economically feasible.

Re:The problem

[RealAlaskan]

Unless they spend their spare time working in a mall they aren't interacting with anywhere near the hundreds of other kids most public schoolers see on a daily basis.

I can only think of two places where you are likely to be age tracked, and spend all your time with large groups of people your own age: the military, and prison. The age tracking isn't deliberate in those institutions, but there are some other parallels.

Socialization is what happens in society. Adults spend most of their time either at a job, working individually or in small groups, then they go home to their families. School takes kids out of society, into an artificial environment which has more in common with a prison than the real world. School prevents socialization. Remember that the Columbine killers were ``socialized'' in one of the public, warehouse schools.

The Moores (see ``When Education Becomes Abuse: A Different Look at the Mental Health of Children'') did some research (see ``School Can Wait") in the 1970s which showed that putting children into a school environment before about age 12 caused no end of pathologies. They became peer-dependent, they became alienated from their parents, they learned to hate anyone who wasn't a member of their group, and on and on.

Most homeschooled children I've met are taught by parents who want to isolate them from what the parents see as harmful influences in public schools.

What sort of irresponsible parent wouldn't? The Moores' work shows that simply sending your kids to a ``good'' school can do them harm. The fact that there are metal detectors at the door and armed guards in the halls and a lot of violence in spite of all that shouldn't worry me, I suppose? Should I get my kids a bunch of snuff movies and kiddie porn so they don't grow up ``sheltered''? Have you done that for your kids?

That's not to say they're [homeschooling parents] all xenophobic extremist zealots, but the majority are.

I'm afraid that I've never met an extremist zealot who homeschooled, and I've met hundreds of homeschooling families over the years. Unless you simply mean ``parents who want to shelter their kids until they're mature enough to take care of themselves''. If that's what you mean, I'm proud to be a xenophobic extremist zealot.

Re:The problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll agree with you that the use of our educational dollars is questionable at times, but that's precisely what's great about a representative system like ours.

Ranting aside, parents of special needs have whined to their legislators and the courts, and it's steamrolled up from there. I'd love to see the educational system "rescued", but I don't see it happening anytime soon.

As for home-schooling, if you've been successful with it, my hat's off to you. When teaching, I encountered several previously home-schooled children. A few were brilliant, and it was obvious their parents had worked hard to get them there. Too many were held at home for indoctrination to some religion, and couldn't add two and two when they got to me. Sounds like you've done a fine job, though

Re:The problem

[amchugh]

I agree that public schools are a mess. I hope we find a solution that preserves the economy they could represent over homeschooling.

I have two nits to pick. Your figures about homeschooling seem to me to be way off, unless you consider the teacher's time to be worth close to zero.

Also, your language when discussing incapable and disruptive or capable and brilliant seems to suggest that brilliant and disruptive are mutually exclusive. I can tell you from my experience as a student, and my wife's as a teacher that that is not necessarily the case.

Most homeschooled children I've met and/or hired excel at the areas that they have a natural aptitude in, sometimes far and away beyond their public school peers. Some of them however are relatively low in their 'weak' areas when compared to 'competent' public school peers. For example, I had a great kid working for me who was well on his way to an MCSE at age 16. Unfortunately his spelling was about at the sixth grade level. Of course, many public schools crank out kids who are equally bad, but I think you get my point.

Re:The problem

[servognome]

Furthermore, homeschoolers again are showing the way: learning disabled children who are homeschooled often wind up ahead of the U.S. median, and always at lower cost than the ineffective public child-warehouses

Homeschoolers have involved parents who encourage their children. Many parents who send their children to public schools don't provide the same level of involvement. Probably the biggest difference in education between the US and other countries is the parents and cultural emphasis on educatin. In many countries it is very important that their child get into the right school. It becomes a point of pride to brag about in the community, much the same way sports and athletics are emphasized in the US.

All of those countries have their share of economic and social problems, but many of them seem to have smaller and more tractable social problems than we do. Their economic problems don't seem to be caused by poor education to the extent ours are, either.

The US does a good job with respect to educating and encouraging individuality and entreprenuership which have kept the US economy relatively strong. The US doesn't have horrible economic problems, things may not be great, but the US hasn't lagged in a 10 year recession, nor seen 10%+ inflation rates, or 9%+ unemployment rate.

Re:The problem

[kin_korn_karn]

To be fair, I should point out that the 'safe sex' policies lauded by prior administrations weren't exactly effective either. Better to try something new that doesn't work than stick with the same old that hasn't been working for decades.
Yeah, because nobody thought of abstinence before. Especially not the church, which is who is feeding Bush his entire platform.

Re:The problem

[Grishnakh]

Don't take it personally. There's a lot of idiot moderators on here. Hopefully he'll get meta-modded down for it.

Slashdot needs a stronger meta-moderation system to weed out the bad moderators.

Re:The problem

[CodeBuster]

Parents of special needs are a special interest and in democratic societies special interests will always get what they want as long as they remain small relative to the rest of the population. The special interests get their way precisely because they are small. For example, the American sugar farmers get massive subsidies from the federal government every year because they would not be able to survive on the world sugar prices without them. Those subsidies are a voting issue for those sugar farmers. If you vote to cut their subsidy they will all vote against you as a block in the next election. It is very hard to get the remainder of the population angry about the $1.25 extra per year in taxes so that the sugar farmers can get their subsidy. Sure, we don't like paying more, but the rest of us have more important stuff to worry about and if we were going to vote for the politician anyway then $1.25 per year extra probably isn't going to change our minds. So when faced with the prospect of definitely loosing 90,000 sugar farmer votes for a gain of relatively nothing popular votes how do you think the politician will vote? He will vote for the subsidy of course. The problem is that there is not just one special interest in this country, but thousands, indeed we are all part of some special interest group even if it is only the local homeowners association that cries NIMBY. The result is that the government looses massive sums of money to pork spending and waste because thousands of special interests are all taking their cut and each of them is too small to single out and target individually. They all fly below the radar when considered individually, but to the nation it is death by a thousand cuts.

Re:The problem

[J.R. Random]

Of course other countries are not crazy enough to insist that children with Down's syndrome be "mainstreamed" with the normal kids. But I've also noticed that an astoundingly large fraction of kids these days are labeled "special needs" (far more than could be accounted for by serious disabilities like Down's syndrome or blindness). Either we need eugenics real soon or some bureaucrats have found it profitable to define a lot of normal kids as disabled.

Re:The problem

[NeoSkandranon]

I'm afraid that I've never met an extremist zealot who homeschooled...

Perhaps extremist zealot isn't accurate here (No doubt that depends on who you ask.) but I might guess that some percentage go in for it as much for control as other benefits. I'm glad to hear that your experience differs, as I find it depressing that parents homeschool sheerly for the control-factor, but here's what I've encountered.

At the last church I attended homeschooling had a strong following, and the parents motivations for it had at least as much to do with isolating their children from "bad" influences as it did with improving the quality of education.

Talking with the youth there (by youth i mean middle and highschool, myself being 18 or 19 at the time) I was floored from time to time by the way they responded to conversation (aside from being more or less socially inept I'd get comments like "Oh right, Metallica...I read about them in world magazine once..") or the naivete they exhibited.

---they were all bright kids, no doubt, and probably knew their stuff academically better than the average highschooler. However you could tell that they were sheltered. It wasn't a matter of waiting until the kid was mature enough to deal with something, the line of thinking was "I don't think my children should encoutner this, so instead of teaching them how to deal with things and make decisions, I'll just make sure they never see it." (As a Christian I never understood that idea, but that's another discussion I guess)

Re:The problem

[Rostin]

That's not to say they're all xenophobic extremist zealots, but the majority are.

Yeah, yeah, I know, it's my anecdotal evidence against yours.

My experience has been, homeschooled kids are different.

For starters, they have been without exception more polite than other kids their age.

In spite of the stereotype, they've actually been more socially well-adjusted, both around other people their age and adults. Yes, in spite of having less practice at interacting (Please look back on your public school days and think about how much good it actually did you in this regard, especially if you are a geek.)

Frequently, they're less selfish because they are necessarily from single-income homes.

They exhibit much greater self-confidence (not arrogance) because they have been able to nuture interests and work more at their own pace without stress or fear of being made fun of.

Some would call this a negative. I think of it as neutral or slightly positive. They tend to care less about fashion and generally what's "cool." (This, imo, is probably at the root of many stereotypes. Homeschooled kids are dweebs. Nevermind whether that's actually important a year after you get out of high school.)

They are high achievers. One of my best friends was homeschooled, and is working on his PhD in chemical engineering at MIT right now.

I'm not sure what to make of your comment about them being "xenophobic extremist zealots." Those are charges that cut both ways and only stick to the minority.

Re:The problem

[AK Marc]

I'm proud to be a xenophobic extremist zealot.

That's obvious. Homeschoolers are mostly religious nuts that think public schools are a place where their children will be turned into heathens. The second group are the people like you that hate schools. The vast minority are those that homeschool with the best interests of the children as the primary (and nearly only) motivation.

You mention the socialization being better for home schooled kids. That's a flat out lie. Every study done that shows one way, there is another that leans the other way. The only thing that can be concluded is that it depends on the student. To flatly assert one way or the other indicates that you are ignorant or a liar. Since you are obviously well educated in homeschooling, it seems that you are a liar. Perhaps you have spent too much time in Juneau near the Jet Set (well, if the whining little liar gets his way - and if you object to me calling him a liar, you can take the time to explain "user fees" not being taxes).

Re:The problem

[RWerp]

Either we need eugenics real soon or some bureaucrats have found it profitable to define a lot of normal kids as disabled.

Nah, it's the kids and their parents themselves. It's easier to pass written exams when you get a paper saying you're dyslectic and dysgraphics. Why need to bother with a misbehaving child, that is rude to colleagues and teachers, when you can get a paper saying it has "compulsive disorder" or something like that?

Re:The problem

[RWerp]

There is a slight difference between "having a special interest in agriculture subsidies" and "having a special interest in raising a child with a Down syndrome". With all the help one can get from outside, raising such kids is a really tough job and people who have such kids deserve our help.

Re:The problem

[RWerp]

but the US hasn't lagged in a 10 year recession, nor seen 10%+ inflation rates, or 9%+ unemployment rate.

Such statements are useless unless it is said what period you're talking about. The USA had 10%+ inflation rates in the '70s, for example.

Re:The problem

[RWerp]

I think you're missing one thing: how much parents encourage and supervise their kids' education. If they just send off the children to school and are not interested in their education further, they'll get little return from their taxes. Homeschoolers take active interest in their children, and that's the main reason why a part of them is successful. However, I think the optimum solution is to send your kid to a good school and take active interest in his/her education. Homeschooling is difficult and may lead to children lacking certain areas of knowledge, because the parents are not experts in every area (there are only two of them, and schools employ more teachers than that) or because the parents don't like evolution or special relativity, and ommit these important facts in the material they teach. Besides, not everyone is a good teacher, while everyone can try to inspire his children to learn.

Re:The problem

[jtpalinmajere]

Obviously I should have qualified my remark by saying a 'federally funded program promoting abstinence'. I mean, DUH. Churches and many other organizations have pushed the concept for ages, and those who have listened and given a damn were generally able to abide by such a simple concept as abstinence. However, to my knowledge (and I may be wrong here, I admit) there has not been a federally funded program directly promoting abstinence pushed and supported by the presidential administration before now.

This is an important point as the churches aren't the ones who fund sex education classes and such except perhaps in the smallest of towns. I don't know if you can remember your sex ed class when you were young, but in mine they filled the class with language of 'When you have sex...' rather than 'You should NOT have sex, but IF you do...'. The first suggests to those who have not otherwise been introduced to the issue properly that having sex is OK... even at a young age. I'll not debate the morality of it outside of marriage because that's another issue, but I think we can all pretty much agree that it's a bad idea for kids to have sex. I think that holds all the way through highschool and perhaps even through college. All that education serves a purpose of preparing you for getting a job... at which point you can actually pay on good faith for child support if you go boinking people every Friday and Saturday night, or *gasp* get married and actually be able to help support a family.

I'll grant you that no system is going to work, however, until the parents take a more active role in educating (and disciplining) their children. Its a chicken/egg scenario to be honest; to correctly condition the kids the parents likely need to have been conditioned themselves... but they weren't, and so the cycle repeats when the kids become parents. As much as I hate to say it, but it is situations like that which make envy the 'brainwashing' techniques depicted in Brave New World and other literature... assuming we could actually come up with an educational and social standard that everyone could agree on... but alas, yet another hopeless cause.

Of course, I might also point out that 'the church' as you term it doesn't really exist in the connotation that you suggest. 'The church' that you refer to are those politically wealthy enough to whisper sweet nothings in the President's ear concerning their own religious beliefs. THAT entity has existed for almost EVERY president, not just this one. Christianity as a whole has no such hold on Bush's actions, but rather Bush successfully uses Christianity as a handy dandy tool in his political utility belt.

Re:The problem

[Retric]

My mother was a teacher who knew enough about the system to work it. As soon as she got me labeled L.D. (Spelling / Grammar / Basic Arithmetic)/Exceptionally Gifted (Science, Higher Math, Reading comprehension, Social Studies, ect) they where all to willing to bend over backwards for me. At one point I was going to school 1/2 the day and home school the rest of the time. So they sent a bus take me home after lunch every day. Now think about that your helping one student but just how much did that cost? Most things like giving me an extra set of books where next to useless but everything cost some cash.

The sad part was they basically decided to ignore anything I was not good at so I could excel in most areas and move out the door as it where. Now, I think it worked out well in my case but I still feel a little guilty about those bus rides.

Still it was interesting and I have some fond memories from that, like taking an assessment test. I think it was an IQ test but they did not want to call it that. Anyway this lady hands me a puzzle and starts a timer and try's to start reading her book but in like 15 seconds I go 'yoo-hoo I am finished' she sort of shudders as she had clearly forgotten where she was then goes go 'uhh what.' She then clicks the timer looks at me the finished puzzle and then says 'how do you do that that fast?' and here I am thinking umm that's not that fast let's see what happens when I hurry.

Ahh, good times. Still some things where a little hard. They moved me from remedial English in 8th grade to Honors English in 9th. Which might not have been so bad if I had any clue what the parts of speech where. Ok I was fine with nouns, verbs, and adjectives but as soon as she started talking adverb, and the object of the preposition I was simply lost. I still passed that class by the skin of my teeth and I did end up passing the AP test but that had nothing to do with learning the rules of grammar so much as faking it well enough to pass my classes.

Re:The problem

[Retric]

I think home schooling tends to take in a lot more of the outliers than most sample groups. You are more likely to find kids who are 140+IQ and parents who are ultra religious. Most people home school their kids because they feel they can do a better job than the US educational system. Now many of them are correct but by no means all.

Anyway, I think HS's greatest benefit is also its greatest weakness in that it tends to produce people who are a little more extreme that normal school would. You simply end up with more rough edges when you don't have the constant pressure to conform 5 days a week for 12+ years.

PS: Hmm, I fit 95% of what you're saying...

Re:The problem

[kin_korn_karn]

Secularism is merely the correct philosophy for a modern society. It is not meant to cure every social problem.

Re:The problem

[Mr. Slippery]

In 1998, the average per student expenditure for U.S. elementary and high schools was roughly the same as the per student expenditure at Harvard (NOT the tuition, but Harvard's expenditure).

I find that doubtful.

This page shows that in 1991, the publicly funded portion of education expenditure per primary and secondary students in the United States was $4,605.

This page show's that Harvards's library and information resources expenditure alone per student in 1999 was $3,904.

In 1998, with expenses of $1.6 billion and a student population of 18,500, Harvard's expense per student was...almost $88,000. We probably shouldn't count research expenses toward that, so take away the 23% for that and it's still $68,000 per student for instruction and related support.

I doubt that private expenditures were high enough to make up that $60,000+ difference, or that education spending rose enough during the 90s to catch up.

More importantly, "average" hides many things. Average a kid at an expensive private school with a $16,000 yearly expenditure with a kid at a near-bankrupt inner city school with a $2,000 yearly expenditure, and you've got an average of $9,000 per student year.

Again in 1991, public U.S. expenditures per student ranged from $2,600 in Mississippi to $7,900 in Alaska.

The idea that "American public schools are failing" is false because there is no American public school system - each county can be a radically different case.

That's well illustrated in my area, where within the space of a few miles the Baltimore City school system is on the verge of failing, Baltimore County schools are generally adequate (though that varies significantly in different parts of the county), and Howard County schools are doing well. The pass rates on the High School Assessment tests are 33%, 50%, and 74% respectively - more than a factor of 2 between Howard County and Baltimore City.

Re:The problem

[Mr. Slippery]

some 18-year olds who have been at school all their life can't multiply fractions, not because of lack of intelligence (there would not be any point recruiting those cases for university anyway, sorry) but simply because they were never taught it.

Actually people can be highly intelligent but still unable to multiply fractions.

An ex-girlfriend of mine is a Fulbright scholar who speaks something like eight languages. She's working on her PhD in Egyptology and will probably end up department head at some prestigious university. But I once spent twenty minutes explaining to her how to figure a 20% tip by doubling the amount and moving the decimal point, and all I got was blank looks. No math sense at all. And not because she wasn't exposed to math - her dad was a EE who became a vice president at Bell Labs.

Math to her is just a blind spot, like music to the tone deaf or spelling to the dyslexic. (She also had no sense of direction - I knew her for years before we dated, we dated for six months, she would still get lost on the way to my house.)

Re:The problem

[pmjordan]

Oh yes, definitely. Some people have no affinity to this kind of stuff, which isn't really a problem in itself, there are plenty of other fulfilling and interesting things to do that don't require maths. She seems to have found something that interests her. I know intelligent biology students, fresh out of school, who couldn't solve a linear equation if their life depended on it.

The point I was trying to make was that there are people who do have a natural talent for maths and physical sciences, but are not exposed to maths at an early enough stage in their life, when their minds are still much more fertile. This is especially problematic if they're interested in science, or engineering, but aren't especially excited about maths itself, and then are scared off by the amount of maths required to do anything useful.

~phil

about time

[brontus3927]

It's about time. The Nobel Committee isn't living up to goals Alfred Nobel had for the prize. I read an article on the Nobel Prize and how to win it. Step 1 was live a long time, because it takes so long for your research to be recognized by the committee. IIRC, the average time between doing something Nobel worthy and being nominated for it is ~20 years.

Re:about time

[k98sven]

The Nobel Committee isn't living up to goals Alfred Nobel had for the prize. [..] IIRC, the average time between doing something Nobel worthy and being nominated for it is ~20 years.

And how does that indicate that the Nobel committee isn't doing their job? It often takes 20 years to evaluate the importance of a discovery. Could you point out some prize-winners you don't feel are worthy? There is seldom any controversy over the winners. Which means that the Committee is indeed doing a good job.

Also, it's not true that it always takes a long time. Naturally it depends on the discovery and the field. Carlo Rubbia was awarded the prize less than 2 years after his discovery, because it was an anticipated experimental verification of a theory.

The idea that these prizes would compete with the Nobels is rather ridiculous. In the century since the Nobel prizes were instituted lots of other science prizes have been created. None of them compete with the Nobels which have achived a class of their own. Much due to the good work of the Committee.

Re:about time

[Deinhard]

Unless, of course, you get publicity. Bono was just nominated for his Second Nobel Peace Prize

Re:about time

[James McGuigan]

Well it took exactly 20 years for Wangari Maathai, after recieving the Alternitive Nobel Prize (Right Livelihood Award) in 1984 to be finally be awarded the "offical" Nobel Prize
http://www.rightlivelihood.org/recip/maathai.htm
http://www.rightlivelihood.org/news/wangari-maatha i-nobel-prize.htm

Re:about time

[squiggleslash]

Could have fooled me. I was nominated this year for the Nobel Peace Prize because of my strong opposition to the Bush-administration's pro-war stance. To quote the nomination committee "Squiggleslash's tireless support for peaceful methods of regime change, and his determination and his eloquent and persuassive oratory, has moved many to question the need for violence where decency and respect can, themselves, change minds."

All this for a Journal Entry I made in October. This is in stark contrast to the Pulitzer Prize committee that still hasn't even commented upon my Hurricane Frances coverage.

This, I guess, is nothing new. Same as it ever was, indeed. Same as it ever was.

Re:about time

[Muhammar]

"the average time between doing something Nobel worthy and being nominated for it is ~20 years"

No no no. Arafat got Nobel price faster.

(you can get nominated if you stop doing something, too)

Re:about time

[Hackie_Chan]

IIRC, the average time between doing something Nobel worthy and being nominated for it is ~20 years.

This is not "a bug, but a feature", so to speak. Egas Moniz who invented lobotomy in 1935 (aka Psychosurgery) got the Nobel Prize in 1949. Which, the committee now think in retrospect was quite a blunder. Quoting Wikipedia "The era of lobotomy is now generally regarded as a barbaric episode in psychiatric history".

...which is a part of the many reasons why they take such a long time to nominate.

Re:about time

[AK Marc]

...which is a part of the many reasons why they take such a long time to nominate.

So, in addition to being slow, they are still wrong sometimes. Then why not be more timely?

Re:about time

[k98sven]

The Fields medal is just as prestigious as a Nobel prize. It just isn't as well known to the general public.

I'd agree with that. But that difference in publicity is exactly one of the things which puts the Nobel prizes in their own category.

And it has everything to do with the Committee never even trying to create a prize for mathematics.

Of course they never even tried to create a prize for mathematics. It's not their job. The Committees select the prize-winners, that's all.

The ones which concievable could do that would be the Nobel Foundation (the executors of the will). But for that precise reason (being executors of the will) they're legally bound to follow it. And the will says nothing about a mathematics prize.

(No, I know it doesn't say anything about an Economics prize either. But the "Nobel prize in economics" isn't a Nobel Prize. It's named "The prize in economics in the memory of Alfred Nobel". It's not awarded by the Nobel foundation. The prize money does not come from the Nobel estate.)

Flavour of the month?

[m50d]

I appreciate attempts to increase the popularity of science - but I wonder if the choice of categories is rather shortsighted. Are these the areas that are important long-term, or simply the trendiest parts of science at the moment? I wonder if some more traditional areas would benefit more from a new award - it's quite easy to get people excited about nanotech, less so for some other areas.

Re:Flavour of the month?

[brontus3927]

astrophysics, neuroscience and nanotechnology... the three areas prizes will be awarded. Astrophysics and neuroscience has been "trendy" for decades. Perhaps these are the areas that Klavi himself is the most interested. One can certainly see where the development and maturation of nanotechnology could help a business that makes sensors, which is how he made his fortune that he is now putting towards this prize

Re:Flavour of the month?

[Pxtl]

Want a new Nobel Prize? How about one for friggen' math? As a mathy, the best you can get is a Fields' Medal - and if you haven't heard of it, don't worry - nobody else has either. The closest Nobel is for economics, which imho is about the same as awarding one for alchemy.

Re:Flavour of the month?

[AuMatar]

The economics award isn't a true Noble prize. Its an award made by a similarly named organization which wanted to horn in and give econ an award.

Re:Flavour of the month?

[m50d]

Actually I have heard of it, it is pretty major, though it always seems to be compared to the Nobel prizes and come out in their shadow, yes.

ob Simpsons

[Valiss]

"What has science ever done? Has science ever kissed a girl, won a football game, or gone to the moon?" Homer J. Simpson

Re:ob Simpsons

[wootest]

Hey hey hey! Focus on the real issue here - what'll happen to the Annual Montgomery Burns Award for Outstanding Achievement in the field of Excellence?

He'll need all the publicity he can get

[Shisha]

In mathematics we have Fields medals and Abel prices, which in importance, are comparable to Nobel prices and yet very few people (in general public) are aware that they even exist.

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[VMaN]

So you won one and want to spread the good word? ;)

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[P-Nuts]

To preempt the urban legend about the reason why the lack of a mathematicss nobel prize, see The Prize's Rite

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[Boing]

I think the real reason the public doesn't know about Fields or Abel is because it would be extraordinarily difficult to explain the achievements being awarded.

For example, take this Wikipedia exerpt from the entry on 1974 Fields winner Enrico Bombieri...

Bombieri's theorem is one of the major applications of the large sieve method. It improves Dirichlet's theorem on prime numbers in arithmetic progressions, by showing that by averaging over the modulus over a range, the mean error is much less than can be proved in a given case. This result can sometimes substitute for the still-unproved generalized Riemann hypothesis.

Did you get all that? No? Part of the problem is that 99.9% of people would have no clue what any of that meant, but mostly it's that there's no apparent or easily explainable relevance to things people care about.

Contrast the discovery of X-rays, or the obvious world effects of Peace Prize winners, or the Chemistry awards that let us understand and control the real world better, or the Physiology awards that help us know how the human body works. Obviously, most of the awards suffer a similar problem of being too technical for most people to understand, but you can still get their attention by explaining the practical consequences in a simple way.

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[big-magic]

One problem with the Fields medal is that it is only awarded every 4 years. Unlike the Nobel and Turing awards which are given yearly.

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[photonic]

Not that physics is always that understandible: A few weeks ago at a day organized by our national physics society I heard a talk by Frank Wilczek, who won this years prize. He was introduced by 't Hoofd, who won it a few years ago, as being an excelent speaker. I think only a small part of the audience (all physicists) had a clue about what he was talking about, most of my colleagues had to resist falling asleep. I saw a talk by the other guy a year earlier and that was not much better.

Mightbe it is because both men did something in high energy/small partical physics, but I think there are not much nobel prizes that could get the kids to study science. Mightbe x-rays or a MRI scanner, but how do you explain the joy of a Bose-Einstein condensate, a high Tc superconductor or some bloody neutrino?

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[Boing]

Heh, people may not be able to understand "a Bose-Einstein condensate, a high Tc superconductor or some bloody neutrino", but maybe the real secret of the Nobel Prize in Physics is that physical phenomena have such cool names. :)

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[Grishnakh]

Mightbe it is because both men did something in high energy/small partical physics, but I think there are not much nobel prizes that could get the kids to study science. Mightbe x-rays or a MRI scanner, but how do you explain the joy of a Bose-Einstein condensate, a high Tc superconductor or some bloody neutrino?

Simple: you show the kids a Stargate episode where the team saves the Earth by using a Bose-Einstein condensate to destroy the Ga'ould mothership.

Re:He'll need all the publicity he can get

[1iar_parad0x]

Ironically, you picked a topic out of number theory, which is certainly more accessible to the average joe as opposed to topology or analysis.

is it the money

[brajesh]

it's not the money that makes nobel prize so special. $1 million or whatever cannot augment over the 100 year legacy of the coveted prize.

For a reason

[Mr. Underbridge]

It's about time. The Nobel Committee isn't living up to goals Alfred Nobel had for the prize. I read an article on the Nobel Prize and how to win it. Step 1 was live a long time, because it takes so long for your research to be recognized by the committee. IIRC, the average time between doing something Nobel worthy and being nominated for it is ~20 years.

Often it can take that long to truly estimate the impact of the sort of truly revolutionary discoveries that would warrant a prize. Also, because it's not awarded posthumously, it sometimes seems a race to award the prize to older scientists before they die.

But the first reason I mentioned seems the more important one. It's hard to have perspective when the research is first done, and you want to make sure it stands up and has a truly significant impact. You don't want to give it to flashy but less sound science that was the "flavor of the month."

Re:For a reason

[PMuse]

because [the Nobels are] not awarded posthumously, it sometimes seems a race to award the prize to older scientists before they die.

Doesn't the same logic that says awarding the prize to a dead scientist does the world little good suggest that awarding the prize to a nearly dead scientist does the world little good?

Re:For a reason

[brontus3927]

While I understand that reasoning, from TFA: "founder Alfred Nobel once said he wanted to encourage "dreamers" who lacked funding."

At the heart of the issue, there are two (partially) conflicting goals at work. One is to promote sound science, and the other is to generate enthusiasm in order to create a new generation of scientists. There reason they conflict is because most science isn't considered very "exciting" I'd like to see a prize set up more like the Grammy's. The most groundbreaking, innovative, or outright interesting research in a certain field in the last year. Plenty of glitz, some celebrities (Will Smith, George Lucas, and Steven Speilberg have made fortunes off of science-fiction, one would think they'd be happy to promote the science aspect), TV coverage. Follow up with the Nikeoldeon/Lego model and have another award where kids select winners. Sure you don't get as in-depth when kids are involved, but getting them interested at a young age and keeping them interested is essential.

Re:For a reason

[Mr. Underbridge]

Doesn't the same logic that says awarding the prize to a dead scientist does the world little good suggest that awarding the prize to a nearly dead scientist does the world little good?

Eh? No. It's hard to have a ceremony for a corpse. And the prize is more a celebration than some sort of tool to save the world. Presumably you already did that, which is why you *have* the prize.

Re:For a reason

[Mr. Underbridge]

While I understand that reasoning, from TFA: "founder Alfred Nobel once said he wanted to encourage "dreamers" who lacked funding."

Yeah, that ain't it anymore. ;)

There reason they conflict is because most science isn't considered very "exciting" I'd like to see a prize set up more like the Grammy's. The most groundbreaking, innovative, or outright interesting research in a certain field in the last year. Plenty of glitz, some celebrities (Will Smith, George Lucas, and Steven Speilberg have made fortunes off of science-fiction, one would think they'd be happy to promote the science aspect), TV coverage. Follow up with the Nikeoldeon/Lego model and have another award where kids select winners. Sure you don't get as in-depth when kids are involved, but getting them interested at a young age and keeping them interested is essential.

Hmm, that's an interesting concept. Nothing wrong with more awards for the sciences in my opinion. I will say it's not like nothing of the sort existed - every society has some sort of "Young Innovator" award - but the getting kids involved bit is interesting.

I have to disagree with the celebrities though. All you'd have is a bunch of mouth breathers stealing attention and hilariously pretending and failing to grasp the scientific achievements being awarded.

Re:For a reason

[jjr1]

It'll all be moot when these scientists get off their lazy collective asses come up with a way to live forever.

Re:For a reason

[k98sven]

While I understand that reasoning, from TFA: "founder Alfred Nobel once said he wanted to encourage "dreamers" who lacked funding."

That might be what TFA says. But it's not at all what Nobel's final will and testament says:

"The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: the capital, invested in safe securities by my executors, shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind. "

(Yes, they dropped the 'preceding year' bit almost from the start. It just wasn't practically feasable.)

At the heart of the issue, there are two (partially) conflicting goals at work.

There is no conflict. The Nobel Committe has to follow Nobels will, and that does not say anything about promoting Science. Only awarding those who have made great discoveries. End of discussion.

And in case you missed it, the Nobel ceremonies are televised in something like 70 nations. Perhaps you've never seen it, but it does have celebrities; The Swedish royal family and Prime Minister, previous prize-winners. Essentially the world's academic elite.

No, it's not as glitzy as Will Smith and George Lucas. It's something far more sober and classy. And that's how it's supposed to be. The prize is for the winners, not vice-versa.

Re:For a reason

[brontus3927]

The Nobel Committe has to follow Nobels will, and that does not say anything about promoting Science.

Silly me, I thought that was the entire point of having a prize. To promote that for which the prize is awarded

Re:For a reason

[Gulthek]

The prize (as originally intended) is supposed to provide funding for dreamers to begin their exciting new research.

Re:For a reason

[Reckless Visionary]

It's hard to have a ceremony for a corpse.

Um, no it isn't. I'd say there were thousands of ceremonies for corpses just in the United States today. Funerals.

There doesn't seem to me to be any rational reason to disqualify a person from recognition just because they are no longer living.

Re:For a reason

[Mr. Underbridge]

Um, no it isn't. I'd say there were thousands of ceremonies for corpses just in the United States today. Funerals.

OK. It would be hard for a corpse to give a speech. Which is much of the point of the ceremony.

Re:For a reason

[Ahkorishaan]

Did anyone think of that cliff anaolgy for limits of like curves, when they read that... If one line is beneath another line, that has a limit >= 0, and the other line has the limit of 0, then both lines have a limit of zero. Inversely, If the top line has a limit, the bottom cannot be divergent in the upwards direction, and vice versa.

Re:For a reason

[k98sven]

Silly me, I thought that was the entire point of having a prize. To promote that for which the prize is awarded

Well, no it's not in this case. The Nobel Foundation isn't some organization devoted to promoting science. They're merely the executors of Alfred Nobels will. They are legally bound to follow that will, or they'll be breaking the law.

And they've done a damn good job at it. After 100 years, the Nobel prizes are the most prestigious awards in the world. The Nobel fortune has been invested wisely, and is larger than ever.

That's nice...

[Otter]

...but it's not as if he's only the second person to think of giving prizes to scientists. There are plenty more prizes out there than just the Nobels.

Eh?

[ShaniaTwain]

would that be the IgNobel Prize?

A modest suggestion.

[Sandbox Conspiracy]

As a geek at least partially inspired by Scotty from Star Trek, I wouldn't mind seeing a James Doohan Award for excellence in contributing to technological advancement or similar.

Re:A modest suggestion.

[SmokeHalo]

To be followed by the Shatner double-whammy: the Kirk Medal for excellence in shipcaptainry, and the T.J. Hooker "Cop of the Year" Award.

Re:A modest suggestion.

[TheOldSchooler]

He's dead Jim.

Prestige for Research Institutions

[lake2112]

The Nobel Prize has been reduced to an advertising tactic for research institutions. Of course the more Nobel Prizes an institution has will propagate a higher caliber of researchers etc. It is nowhere near the idea that Mr. Nobel has a long time ago.

Re:Prestige for Research Institutions

[k98sven]

Since when weren't prizes, any and all of them, used for prestige and marketing?

What do you mean "It is nowhere near the idea Mr Nobel had"? Did he have a section in his will that said "Those who recive my prize may not be proud of it?".

Or are you implying that the Nobel committee is corrupt? There certainly is very little evidence of that. The prizes which have been rewarded have largely been regarded as deserved. That is the whole reason the prize means anything and has any marketing value.

More Prizes the Better

[eestar]

I would like to see more prizes that are as prestigous as the Nobel for newer areas of research. There are those of us that no matter what kind of research we produce, could never be given a world renown prize simply because we are not in the right field.

Re:More Prizes the Better

[flyingsquid]

I would like to see more prizes that are as prestigous as the Nobel for newer areas of research. There are those of us that no matter what kind of research we produce, could never be given a world renown prize simply because we are not in the right field.

Definitely. I for one would like to see the Evil Genius Awards. These would honor mad scientists in fields such as Death Ray Technology, Underground Lair Architecture, Mind Control, and Reanimation of Dead Tissue. Acceptance speeches would, of course, all begin with, "MWAHAHA!!! They laughed, they all laughed!"

It's a ploy

[mathmatt]

Kalvi is just trying to win a Nobel Prize for achievement in the science of making awards.

(I have a feeling he'll have to settle for a Kalvi Prize)

but why is science so unpopular?

[Gothmolly]

It doesn't matter what I write, since I'm bitchslapped down to -1 and nobody will read it. But I have a Slashdot account, so I'll post.
The crucial question that I see is: why are students NOT attracted to the sciences more? I look around and see moral and scientific relativism, where something is right if you need it enough, or want it to be true. If this is the world children find themselves in, why WOULD they study a field which claims that the world is deterministic (down to the resolution of our ability to measure), that things ARE true or false, good or bad?

Re:but why is science so unpopular?

[JhohannaVH]

I think I have a good answer for you, Molly, and no, it's not the money. It's the courts and our intolerant society. Just look at what is going on in Kansas and Georgia and Texas. We have *got* to do something about the Conservative Christian (right or left, I don't give a fsck about your political orientation... it takes all kinds to stick your head in the sand) constantly trying to subvert what Science has PROVED to be fact.

Now, that being said.. One can say that Darwinian Theory is still a theory. Not a single person has 'evolved' anything of substance... just look at these arguments, brain cells haven't evolved! BUT - many other creatures have evolved, and we do so evolve - it's just usually medically corrected - in the event of a sixth finger/toe, or something like that, they call it a malformity. But how do we prove the regularly evolving cellular species, plant species and animal species that have been documented in the past 125 years since The Origin of Species was published? Oh yeah... that's what Intelligent Design is for.

Don't even get me started on physics/astronomy/nanotech/whatever. My point is, our children are NOT being taught sciences in school. They are being taught theocracy, they are being taught lies, and they are deceived. But this has always been the case!!! This has not changed since the 1970s/80s since I went to school. Probably hasn't changed in 60 years. PLEASE!! My history teacher tried to teach us that the Chinese won the Vietnam War, and I graduated in 1991!!

Go ahead, blame Bush, you know you want to. But you are WRONG. Since when do School Board Administrators talk to Congress for their lesson plans? The NEA is just one big fscking Mob Front for whatever their agenda is this month. Last time I checked, legislatures do not set our local school lesson plans. They don't force our students to carry 8 credits of arts, but only 4 of science and 2 of math! These policies are not set by our national government, but by our state and local legislatures. It's time that the blame start being laid at the appropriate feet of those responsible. Your Governer, State Legislature and City Council administer the schools, not the US Government. Tell me about it... I live in California, the crappiest school admin in the country.

Again, all of that said... The No Child Left Behind Act was supposed to help with all of this. HOWEVER, it uses the carrot and stick (not SCHtick) approach. In order to receive the federal funds, the schools have to pass the standardized tests with an 800 or better, and California cannot do that. http://www.nbcsandiego.com/education/4292821/detai l.html I don't know what is so hard about educating children to a basic level, but that's just BS. only 21% of the schools pass, and of them, they are middle and elementary schools!! This is where our problem lies, people. Teachers unwilling or untrained to teach. Goes back to the ye olde compensation issue. Compensate them appropriately, we might see some results. Now, I'm not saying that the NCLB Act is not flawed or implemented well, it's not. But, it was a measure taken to try to mitigate some of these issues. And it's not working because the schools don't want it to.

The entire US School System needs to be overhauled... and it all starts with each of us, in our local communities. NOT with President Bush. Just remember that!!

Personally, I'm just shipping my kids to Japan for education!

Kavli Award?

[Jhan]

So, two important science awards, both hosted by nordic countries?

Nobel at least sound somewhat like "noble". Makes you forget about him making all that money by producing explosives.

Kavli sounds like some sort of low quality bread-spread...

Makes my think this is kind-of a cheesy award. :-)

Re:Kavli Award?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha-ha - more than cheesy, he lives across the street from me. He definitely has an air of entitlement about him. (I won't say any more for fear of risking libel.)

I'll pass

[yotto]

Fred Kavli, a Norwegian physicist, is funding new awards... ...And all he needs is an American bank account in which to store the approx $1.2bln until the awards are given out.

Why nanotechnology?

[geneing]

I wonder why Kavli chose nanotech as an award field. It is hot these days, but will it be important in a decade or two.

When Nobel picked physics, chemistry, physiology&medicine, literature and peace he got it mostly right. These are fundamental areas which will be important for a long time. Although, chemistry prize is often given these days to work related to biology and I can't remember many fundametal discoveries were made lately.

Re:Why nanotechnology?

[k98sven]

Although, chemistry prize is often given these days to work related to biology and I can't remember many fundametal discoveries were made lately.

That has less to do with the prize and more to do with what's going on in chemistry nowadays. It's simply that more things are going on in biochemistry than in the more 'conventional' fields of chemistry.

Biochemistry is to chemistry now a bit like quantum physics was to physics in the 30's. A vast new field to be explored, with lots of new ground to break.

No, fundamental discoveries in 'traditional' chemistry don't come around much anymore. That's because our understanding of fundamental chemistry is sound.

Few chemists believe there is anything in chemistry which cannot be explained by quantum mechanics (which isn't really a seperate dicipline when you get into basic chemistry). While QM isn't the final 'theory of everything' the physicists dream about, it probably is the final theory as far as chemistry is concerned.
(In the same way Newtonian mechanics was the 'final theory' of the mechanics of everyday objects)

Re:Why nanotechnology?

[geneing]

Few chemists believe there is anything in chemistry which cannot be explained by quantum mechanics

Which reminds me of an old joke: "Physics is just mathematics applied to natural world. Chemistry is just physics applied to chemical elements. Biology is just chemistry applied to complex organic molecules. Conclusion: kids, study math."

Re:Why nanotechnology?

[SmokeHalo]

I wonder why Kavli chose nanotech as an award field. It is hot these days, but will it be important in a decade or two.

Ask that question in a decade or two, when all the "safe experiments" have gotten out of control and either unleashed hell on earth or turned the planet into gray goo. We'll be glad to have award-winning nanotechnologists then, I'll wager.

Awards don't attract students to science...

[MagicDude]

Big name prizes don't really attract people to science. College scholarships and demonstrations of practical applications of science will atract new students. For example, it's all well and good if Dr. Hoffenheimer wins the Nobel Prize in physics for his work in anti-positron flux through a silicone wafer, but other than physics grad students and Ph.Ds, nobody else is going to understand it, and lack of understanding leads to lack of caring. I think shows like Beakman's World and Bill Nye have done more to attract kids to science by makeing it seem approchable, rather than science being some thing that old guys did in white coats in sterile labratories.

Re:Awards don't attract students to science...

[deglr6328]

" if Dr. Hoffenheimer wins the Nobel Prize in physics for his work in anti-positron flux through a silicone wafer"

So....eletron flow through boob implants? Was Dr. Hoffenheimer studying celebrity lightning strike victims??!! :)

Re:Where?

[abigor]

He was looking east when he said it, though.

Awards Show

[krough]

Now all they need to do is get the awards show broadcast on FOX. Get a few bands to play, some celebrity wardrobe malfunctions and they'll blow those lousy Nobel Prize winners off the map!

Re:Awards Show

[SmokeHalo]

That's what's been missing all this time! Instead of American Idol, we should be broadcasting Nobel Scientist! All the scientists would perform by replicating previous experiments and adding their own "personal" touches, then each would present their own research at the end of the season. Along the way, the audience gets to vote for their favorite. Who will survive this week? Will the physicist defeat the chemist in the Rube-Goldberg challenge? Stay tuned and find out, only on FOX.

How to get publicity

[lxw56]

He can get more publicity than the Nobel prize quite easily.

He only has to put the awards show on television.

I think someone is bitter....

[lheal]

Try smiling! When you smile, the whole world smiles with you!

Kids want to be rich, be famous, and get laid. Scientists, by and large, lack a reputation for at least two of those.

If it takes a prize or two to motivate a generation of young people ("Oh, wow, I can win that prize I can't pronounce and get rich, be famous, and get laid all over the place!"), that's what it takes.

Re:I think someone is bitter....

[grasshoppa]

Try smiling! When you smile, the whole world smiles with you!

I hate this attitude. Just because I choose to see the realities of our world doesn't mean I'm not an optimist. I choose to see the realities because I want to do something to improve them.

Kids want to be rich, be famous, and get laid. Scientists, by and large, lack a reputation for at least two of those.

Hate to break it to ya, sparky, but kids want what adults want: To feel important. Be that getting good grades, have social status, what have you. They want to feel like they are doing something important, not just spinning their wheels. Much like adults.

Science, by the current administration, is seen as a political tool and little more. It's may not be the reality of the situation, but that's the perception ( tho I suspect it *is* the reality. That's really irrelevant tho ). Whether this is something new with this admin, or if it's been on going, I don't know.

Re:I think someone is bitter....

[museumpeace]

Kinsey was a scientist...sort of. He didn't win any prizes. Most people would not care for the kind of fame he had...but he had plenty of it. And as for getting laid...thats what his science studied.

Re:I think someone is bitter....

[Dysan2k]

I hate this attitude. Just because I choose to see the realities of our world doesn't mean I'm not an optimist. I choose to see the realities because I want to do something to improve them.

No problem. Reality is Bush and the current offices will be depopulated in 2-6 years due to that wonderful bit of democracy called elections. Bush can't run for office again, so just hope the Democrats can find a better candidate this round to beat whomever the Republicans nab to toss up for election. Hillary Clinton ain't gonna cut it.

Want to do something about it? Come up with some way for a car to run off water (recycling the same water for zero emissions), patent the technology, and give it to GM, Ford, and Dodge. That takes a WHOLE lot of money out of the way and a lot of power out of the existing elects' hands.

THAT is realism.

Re:Reward for Mathematics?

[BitterOak]

I just want to see a prize/reward for Mathematicians/math advancement.

I thought the Field's medal was supposed to be the equivalent of a Nobel Prize in mathematics.

what's wrong?

[tofucubes]

Is an A for effort not good enough for you guys anymore?

Nobel, McArthur and this are the wrong kinds

[Baldrson]

Prizes like the Nobel, McArthur and this are fundamentally bad prizes. They are subjective hence politicized.

The correct way to spend such money is demonstrated by the Ansari X-Prize, the Bowery/CATS prize and the fusion prize legislation submitted by Robert W. Bussard to Congress. All of these set forth operational technical criteria for the award before it is known who will win the prize. It make it far harder for politicians posing as scientists and technologists to steal the credit and money due others.

Re:Nobel, McArthur and this are the wrong kinds

[randall_burns]

I would also add to this the Methuselah Mouse Prize-which is a prize for making a mouse live the longest. What is especially interesting about the MM prize is that it is a continuous prize that will constantly have a higher bar-and will never expire.

Re:Nobel, McArthur and this are the wrong kinds

[Jeff Hornby]

The prizes you mention are useful, but the Nobel prizes are meant to encourage research in a more general way.

Try this thought experiment: come up ith a prize like the ones you mentionned (X-Prize, etc.) that will styill be relevant in 100 years. Any idea where science will be in a hundred years? Me neither. But the Nobel prize has been around for over a hundred years rewarding people who have made advances that the founders couldn't even imagine.

Re:Nobel, McArthur and this are the wrong kinds

[randall_burns]

The thing is:
stuff like the Methuselah mouse prize goes beyond politics. The Nobel has a problem in that
1) folks tend to get Nobel prizes when they are old
(so it doesn't facilitate their work)
2) a lot of the awards are very subjective
3) There is political aspect here-I can believe
folks don't get a nobel just because they
aren't well liked by their peers.

The Methuselah Mouse prize doesn't have that kind of problem.

Re:Nobel, McArthur and this are the wrong kinds

[randall_burns]

Relativity I would give you. The Laser? I can easily imagine the laser-or something equivalently dramatic-winning a prize of the type were suggesting. For example, if you had a prize for high density, removable memory, what sort of things would folks come up with?

I'm not arguing against the existance of the Nobel prize-it was one of the great achivements of the early 1900's-but these results oriented prizes have some serious advantages and they can reward folks much earlier in their careers.

Woo hoo!

[mbrother]

Astrophyics rarely if ever wins the Nobel prize (X-ray and Neutrino astronomy did win a couple of years ago, but before that there are just a few instances involving astronomical tests of relativity). There's a lot of good work going on that would be better publicized and understood by the public with a regular high-profile prize.

Re:Woo hoo!

[dpp]

Which instances did you have in mind? Are you including Chandrasekhar, or Martin Ryle?

Re:Woo hoo!

[mbrother]

Those are good examples, which slipped my mind (although some of Chandrasekhar's key work was in applying relativistic constraints to stellar structure). I was thinking of binary pulsars (Taylor and Hulse) in 1993, as a testing ground for gravitational waves.

modern science cares ... about salaries

[2TecTom]

sure scientists care, sure

so how many forgo comfortable lifestyles in order to fund research?

to most scientists, it's just a job that provides good pay, nobody really cares about science

Re:modern science cares ... about salaries

[notmuchtosay]

I am currently in Grad school so clearly money doesn't mean that much to me. In engineering it turns out grad school doesn't really get you more money based on 5 yrs of lost wages/investments/raises/experience. Of course I would love to have more money and feel that I should be reimbursed for my work. I think the discussion here shows it not about the money at all. I could go into finance somewhere and make more money with less training. A frustrating part is that the wage of a worker is meaningless to most research budgets. Most equipment I use would easily cover a few years of wages for me.

Re:modern science cares ... about salaries

[Grishnakh]

Which keeps a lot of people out of the profession.

You may be happy to scrape by on 18k, but you probably have no interest in things like girlfriends, marriage, kids, etc. Most people are interested in these things, and 18k simply isn't going to afford a lifestyle that includes reproduction, something most people consider a very important part of their lives, instead of sitting in a lab, making someone else rich.

I like sitting in a lab just as much as the next guy, but I like a lot of things. If I can make a lot more money doing something else, I'll do that, and use my money to create my own small lab at home doing something that interests me in my spare time.

If our society really values science, engineering, etc., and wants a reasonable number of people to go into this fields in order to build our future, this society needs to properly compensate people in these fields.

Re:modern science cares ... about salaries

[2TecTom]

LOL. Sure, but in truth, you're still in school. I bet your MBA classmates aren't making much more than you. By the way, how much is your professor earning? What's the minimim wage again? Think about it, please.

Re:modern science cares ... about salaries

[notmuchtosay]

Yes I am still in school [It is actually a good deal; I get paid to attend school. Of course nothing would get done at a university w/ out grad students]...but after my classes are done about a year and a half I still earn about the same wage. Nothing but research and writting at that point for at least another 3 yrs. I'm earning about 11 bucks an hour (Chicago area ~ NU), but that goes down as I work more then a 40 hr week. Not sure how much my professor makes I would assume more then 100K but that can vary depending on the school's prestidge level. That is certainly a good living...but that includes 5 yrs. past college and post doc work as well as the 5 yr tenure process. That is alot of money and time spent on training; min. wage applies to people with no additional training. I made what I make now in highschool (lifeguard). As for other comments on social life - about 25% of my incoming grad class was married, and another 25% are in long term relationships.

Re:modern science cares ... about salaries

[2TecTom]

Actually, many, many people earning minimum wages have post secondary training. Many people graduate but never find employment in their field. As well, more often than not, the best jobs go to those with the best connections. There's the illusion of fairness, but then there's the cold hard physical realities of life, see?

alternative "big" prizes already

[peter303]

There's the Lemmelson prize for inventors, the Fields medal for mathematics, the Japan prize for computer science. All these are near the mega-buck range and given out at most a couple people around the world a year.

These just dont have the media prestige of the Nobels. The media and prize mutually bolster each other. Also there is a ctitical mass of a couple hundred living recipients. The number is large enough to have influence, but not so large to be diluted.

Someone is still not smiling.

[lheal]

>I hate this attitude...

I really don't care for it myself. It was a joke. I meant to fill out the joke with a little humor, but I forgot :-).

All administrations see science as a political tool. This one just uses it in a way you don't seem to like. Think Kennedy wanted to go the moon to answer the burning question of what the rocks were made from there? No, it was to make political hay in the Cold War.

I don't care, frown if you must. It's a futile, meaningless life, and in the end we return to dust. No sense wasting all that energy trying to enjoy it while we're here.

Re:Reward for Mathematics?

[skeib]

It exists. The Abel Prize

http://www.abelprisen.no/en/

Compete with the Nobel prizes????

[gstoddart]

While I don't have any problems with additional groups handing out all the awards they like, I completely fail to see why this would be a competition with the Nobel prizes.

I realize we've all become accustomed to the 'me too'-ness of award shows that take place every spring, which I gi=uess kinda 'compete' with the Academy Awards.

But is another group giving more prizes really competing?

Competition is good...

[El_Muerte_TDS]

it's result in lower prices.

uhm.. wait a minute...

Maybe that's because...

[ccharles]

Maybe that's because so few people Fields that they are Abel to win one of these...

(I'm VERY, VERY SORRY!!)

Intelligent Design Prize

[SpaceAdmiral]

I am offering a yearly -$500 prize for the best work in Intelligent Design science.

Prizes don't motivate as much as you think

[agslashdot]

Sciences are not the American Idol. There has been a million dollar reward for ages now, to crack the P-NP problem, among others. You see hordes of math & CS grads working on it ? Nah. There's no easy attack.

Professor Richard Hamming was fond of saying that you can get money beyond your dreams if you solve any one of the 3 hardest problems in physics - timetravel, antigravity, or teleportation. Do you see Physics majors attacking these problems tooth & nail ? As Hammings explains, there's just no known attack.

Americans aren't warming up to the sciences simply because they have a choice. Students get to decide what they want to study. They look at the difficulty levels of the subject, the job market, ask their peers & parents, look at career prospects & evaluate their "sexiness", and decide to major in English & Communication & Marketing instead. In India, where I come from, you simply didn't have a choice, (well, not until you were 18 anyway, by which time it was too late for most of us). You were asked to digest megadoses of math & science in high school. Hell, I remember working on some "preliminary math" problems when I did my Masters in CompSci in the US. The problems were ones I had previously encountered when I was in my early teens, in my high school! But the Professor said American undergrads needed that sort of thing!!

You guys have a choice, so you study literature & photography & journalism & whatnot in your high school. In India, the only choices are math, more math & much more math. So I can comfortably handle a second order differential equation. But to this day I have not studied Shakespear ( spelling ? ), Rosseu, Homer ( not simpson, the pgilosopher chap), Keats, Byron or any other literary figures. I just know the names cause we crammed them for various "general knowledge" quizzes!

Education systems are broken all over the world. In places like India & China, we get a one-sided hard-core math-sci curricula with no literature. In the US/UK, you guys get liberal arts with less math/science than what Bill Gates wants to hire.

Prizes are not the answer (Nor is a $100 laptpop for developing nations). I don't know what is.

Re:Prizes don't motivate as much as you think

[ArsSineArtificio]

Homer ( not simpson, the pgilosopher chap)

Just FYI: Homer was a Greek poet, not a philosopher.

Re:Prizes don't motivate as much as you think

[corblix]

Prizes are not the answer (Nor is a $100 laptpop for developing nations). I don't know what is.

Heartily agree. But I do know what the answer is: if you want to get people to do good work in a field, then make knowledge and study and research in that field a respected and valued and encouraged thing in the culture.

Of course, getting to that situation is tough, but I think I should be able to get us there in a couple of weeks.

The problem... Salary

[xplenumx]

Despite popular belief, the problem of not being able to entice students to science is neither student interest nor government funding - it's salary.

After graduating with a bachleors in biochemistry, I worked for two years at a research institution as a technician making ~$20,000 per year. I then attended graduate school and made ~$18,000 per year. After five years I worked as a post-doc at an academic instituation and made ~$25,000 per year (The NIH recently increased the post-doc salary to $36,000 for a first year post-doc up to $46,000 for a fifth year post-doc). Now, as an assistant professor (which lasts for about 5 years at which point you're reviewed for tenure), I make ~$80,000 per year.

Contrast this with my wife and friends. Two years after graduating from college with an economics degree, my wife made over $80,000 per year. Each of my five friends with business degrees were making over $100,000 per year within four years after graduation. Of my biochemistry peers, those that chose a career outside of research (medicine excluded) did significantly better than those who either worked in science or continued on for their advanced degree. Of my peers with who I obtained a doctorate degree, those who joined industry are doing slightly better (on average ~$100,000 for those without post-docs, ~$120,000 who did) than those who stayed in academic, while those that left science are either doing much better (consulting and writing), or much worse (school teacher).

So, not only do those who presue science achieve a far, far less salary than those who do not, but they're also deeply hurt by all of the income they didn't make during their training. Why do scientists have such big egos? Because we have nothing else.

So, tell me - why should students join science? I'm a scientist, I love science, and I absolutely love my research - but I'd be lying if I said that I don't get frustrated by making far less than my friends while working much, much longer hours. It's not an issue money - it's an issue of compensation. We have advanced degree, we expand the economy, we save lives, and we work incredibly hard - please compensate us appropriately.

Re:The problem... Salary

[xplenumx]

Point taken. However, understand that until Slashdot incorporates a spell checker, you're going to see misspellings - it simply isn't worth anyone's time to write a response in Word first (forgive me), or to review a comment beyond a quick cursory glance.

As you haven't already, you'll soon be amazed by the inability of people in 'positions who should know better' to communicate (either by writing or orally). While many of my peers are very good writers, I know others who are very poor writers and even confuse your and you're. A principle in my wife's company can't write a coherent email for the life of him.

Those who can communicate effectively and intelligently clearly have an advantage in life. However, those who can't may still compete, and sometimes do quite well.

Re:The problem... Salary

[Grishnakh]

Switch to KDE and Konqueror. It has a built-in spellchecker for web forms. Intelligence isn't about knowing everything; it's about finding the most efficient ways of doing things.

Re:The problem... Salary

[Grishnakh]

Are these salaries real??? Now I'm really wondering why I ever chose engineering ($100k is a fantasy salary here).

Re:The problem... Salary

[william.gunn]

we need a firefox extension!

Re:The problem... Salary

[william.gunn]

A-fuckin-Men! How many more years am I going to have to make $22k working 60+ hours a week, doing technically challenging things that 95% of the population couldn't do, before I can start earning a real living? My younger brother, in CS, is already making about 4x as much as me. He's married with a kid on the way. My GF says her clock is ticking. What am I supposed to do about that making $22k? More depressing stats: the average age at awarding of first R01 grant is 42! I must like doing this or something. Most of us know we could never make it in advertising, too.

Home Schoolers

[FuzzyDaddy]

I haven't met a large sample, but the one homeschooled child I know has parents who are entertainers (musician dad, storyteller mom) who travel quite a bit and meet lots of people.

I think the type of home schooled child you meet depends strongly on where you live and who you socialize with. There are a lot of home schooled kids whose parents want to isolate them, but of those who have other motivations there's a lot of desire to get them out into the world.

Re:Where?

[istewart]

Hey. Don't fuck with Aquaman. He knows what's up.

Stupid norwegians

[grazzy]

We swedes will always just pat them on the head in differently patronizing ways. But we'll see who comes crawling back to the good old kingdom when their oil runs out.

You are completely wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want to know where the pathology of crime comes from, take a look at one of your vaunted public preschool programs and see 40 or 50 children being "supervised" by four untrained high school drop-outs, mostly interested in talking on their cell phones.

These children see their parents for about 20 hours a week. The rest of their time is spent in a "Lord of the Flies" environment, where the older, stronger children prey upon the smaller, younger ones. If throwing your children into this mix is your idea of parenting, you obviously haven't given much deep thought to the matter.

We are breeding an entire nation of sociopaths. Saying that "people have always thought today's kids are worse than the 'old days' (as many head-in-the-sand people do) doesn't take into account that children are raising themselves.

Old News...

[physman]

This story was in The Times last week: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-18 791-1584294,00.html

Uninterest, Science, Math, and Understanding

[Ceriel Nosforit]

I'm told I'm studying Comp. Sci, but I think I've been lied to and that what I'm really studying is mathematics. I think math could be very useful to me, if I just had proper understanding of it. The other students I've talked to have apparently not thought much about this, and have skipped the entire 'understanding' part in favor of memorizing every example problem and past answers to tests they can get their hands on. I concider this practice fatalist, counter-productive, and in some sense cheating. They reduce mathematics to superstition, using formulas they have no understanding of at all and are unable to modify. They are aslo unable to create new formulas.

I decided that I'll have none of that, and set out to understand mathematics, first stop being the math teachers. My folly became quickly apparent.
They were doing the exact same thing the rest of their students are. They've memorized _everything_ without understanding what it was. How they are allowed to teach anyone is beyond me. They've created a scenario where mathematical superstition is passed down the generations like some bastardization of tradition. Any attempt to pick apart what they are saying results in fierce opposition as if you are trying to slay their holy cow.

So seeing that my teachers would be of no help, I decided to study math on my own. A year prior to that decision I would have laughed and concidered the very notion alien to all I wish to accomplish. - Study math?? Can you come up with anything even more boring?
It didn't take too long before I discovered Bertrand Russell and his Formal Proof; the foundation of "modern" math.

Thanks to Russell, you do not need to even understand what the formulas mean or anything of the kind, as long as your mathematical syntax is flawless. This for some reason gives free regin to teachers to hammer the syntax into students without them, us, ever knowing what it means.
We become, quite literally, educated fools.

If math was an intellectual island, this would not be a problem. However, math isn't an intellectual island so it is a problem. Math has become synonymous with a great many sciences, and today for example physics without math is inconceivable.
Yet there is no progress in physics without understanding, and math has become alienated to understanding.

It is no wonder that science does not attract students. What we are thaught is in essense to memorize phone books and rely on other people's solutions. What those of us interested in science want to do isn't to assimilate a mathematical encyclopedia, but to understand the reaches of space and time, matter and light, and ultimately ourselves.

"Know thyself", said the inscription. That goal is still as far above our heads as the roof of the building it once adorned, and at this rate we will never reach it. Math _needs_ to be understood, even if we can teach computers to automagically generate 'proof'.

Re:Uninterest, Science, Math, and Understanding

[Anthony]

Fantastic post there. Thanks for that. I have never been a maths wiz but I started a part-time science degree a couple of years ago. I tentatively put in two intro-level Maths courses in my second year plan as I was not confident of passing, given my previous experiences. During the first year, I was horrified at the general aversion to Maths among the science and arts students I came across. A sad state of affairs. I did a bridging course over summer and ended up enrolling in the honours stream Maths. It was fantastic as we went into maths foundations and analysis. I didn't do very well, but noone could get by with just memorising procedures. I have since dropped to the middle stream where it is more formulaic, but I can use the analytic skills I learned last year to succeed. Truly inspiring maths teachers are a rare breed. Sometimes really good mathematicians are deficient in human communicaiton skills. This doesn't help matters.

Re:Uninterest, Science, Math, and Understanding

[mbkennel]

Thanks to Russell, you do not need to even understand what the formulas mean or anything of the kind, as long as your mathematical syntax is flawless. This for some reason gives free regin to teachers to hammer the syntax into students without them, us, ever knowing what it means.
We become, quite literally, educated fools

Thanks to modern mathematics, it is mathematically proven that mathematics is NOT just syntax and logic.

There are many deep and fundamental concepts in mathematics. Syntax is the necessary assistant to express them.

Since the concepts are especially subtle and abstract in mathematics, you need complicated syntax.

Do you think that research math professors have no intuitive idea about the concepts? Suppose they don't: then where do all the new ideas come from?

Any attempt to pick apart what they are saying results in fierce opposition as if you are trying to slay their holy cow.

I have a guess as to what could be happening: you really aren't getting what the professors are trying to tell you, and you're annoyingly self-righteous about it.

Yes, you do have to rely on other people's solutions in mathematics because the sum progress of the smartest people of civilization for hundreds of years is going to be more than your own.

Mathematics is centrally about the inter-relationships between abstract concepts.

There are other aspects at work: that some of the reasons behind mathematical definitions don't become apparent until more knowledge.

In 9th grade you may hear and see about sines and cosines and have to remember all sorts of useless identites. What's the point of sin and cos? Why radians?

It becomes much more apparent when you know calculus and differential equations, when they are elementary solutions to x'' + x = 0 and how the formulas and series expansions only work in radians.

In college level mathematics the same thing happens---there may not be obvious reasons for "why" things are the way they are until you know some serious analysis---how the 19th century systematized and rigorized (and found mistakes) in previous, more 'intuitively' discovered mathematics. Abstract algebra and topology aren't easy to swallow in one gulp either.

Re:Uninterest, Science, Math, and Understanding

[Ceriel Nosforit]

Thanks to modern mathematics, it is mathematically proven that mathematics is NOT just syntax and logic.

Math prooves itself? Then what have you prooved?

There are many deep and fundamental concepts in mathematics. Syntax is the necessary assistant to express them

I bet there are. However, if you look at the very point of the text you quoted, you'll see that I said this lack of understanding applies to the math teachers I've had.
I'm not generalizing, as you seem to think I am. I am speaking of my own experience. In your example of radians, my teachers have simply failed to ever draw the attention of the class to such. A teacher who understands would not fail to point out such a clue.

Re:Uninterest, Science, Math, and Understanding

[Ceriel Nosforit]

It's hard to evaluate this comment without an example; and such a bold statement requires an example.

Well, according mbkennel, who also replied to my post, with differential equations forumals and series work with radians. I take it this is to imply it doesn't work with degrees.
None of my teachers have ever mentioned that _it doesn't work_ without radians, while most of the class is under the impression that radians and degrees are a matter of convenience. I've studied diff equations at two different educational facilities, and nothing like it or anything along the lines ever appeared.

Your comment about Russell and syntax and "understanding the reaches of space and time" sounds like the mathematical equivalent of New Age philosophy math majors that aren't interested in asking about convergence properties of Fourier series until you have fully explored the deeper meaning of adding infinitely many objects and whether the result is really an object at all.

I'm mostly approaching the issue from the perspective of physics while I'm supposedly a Comp. Sci. student myself, so I can't really say about math students... However, I really do appreciate your example. It namely stands to show yet another fault in my education. The teachers I've had have mentioned that with enough sine curves stacked upon each other you can have any wave form, but when they do that they fail to link the example with the math. They can write it down, but so far no one had attempted to explain it. In similar situations, if we take an additional step such as convergence (always without the spontaneous inquiry of a student), the teacher draws no parallel between the additional step and the original example.

That's the perfect example of a subject where *no one* "understands" any of it.
I understand it. So does Robert Anton Wilson, and a lot of non-scientists. Part of the reason I understand it is because I don't sneer at philosophy, but tackle it and move on. - Those philosophical questions which arise in QM are not idle distractions, but intellectual challenges.

I'm aware that there is no "why" in science. I've long abandoned the very notion. However, there is _always_ a "how" in science. It is this "how" which I pursuit, and it should always be possible to be understood with example. I'll leave the "why" and "what" to religion, and hope it will stay there. When "why" becomes "because the teacher said so", I throw a tantrum. The teacher isn't a preist. :P

Sorry about any hints of viscera in my text. I get frustrated.

Re:Reward for Mathematics?

[Stankatz]

"I seem to remember that Nobel shafted these guys because his wife doinked a mathematician while they were married." Urban legend. He was never married.

Re:Reward for Mathematics?

[Stankatz]

Damn it! When did /. start removing line feeds in posts again?

Re:Science won't be popular until...

[Grishnakh]

There are only certain sectors that make big bucks and most of them are either funded by the gov't (weapons, energy, etc.) or large corportations (drugs, etc.)!

This isn't exactly true. While the government certainly spends a lot on weapons systems, ask the engineers that work at those defense contractors how much they're paid and you'll find they're not exactly seeing a lot of that money in their paychecks. Defense contracting jobs are very stable, but well-paid they are not (like every other engineering job out there).

scientific prizes

[Antonymous Flower]

Rewarding scientists isn't a bad thing. However, the prize isn't a million bucks and a golden locket. The prize is discovery. To make progress towards a higher level of understanding is invaluable. When one man comes closer to understanding himself through scientific discovery, the global community prospers. The significance of the nobel prize isn't the golden locket, but rather a point in the direction of understanding. A recognition of truth.

Most kids don't ask the questions that lead to discovery. You could blame that on the schools, but realize that public schools simply aren't for that type of thing. Public schools are for the sake of economic growth. When the economy grows more opportunities for scientific advancements are possible (believe it or not.)

Science isn't popular among youth because there are so many pleasures abound, and few opportunities to ask "what is going on here?" All they hear concerning academics is "do your homework." It's just something that "has to be done." Mathematics, easily the most astounding acheivement of human intellect, is taught merely algorithmically. Students are taught only to learn procedure, rather than to discover.

Schools can suck everywhere

[Anonymous Coward]

There are good schools as well as crap schools in the US, just as there are good schools as well as crap schools in India.

I attended high school in Boston. It was very hard, but the "A.P." tests everybody took seemed pretty lame. I then went across the river to MIT. It was very hard too -- but I was astonished that the standard freshman sequence (8.01, 8.02, 18.03 etc) was basically remedial. Luckily you could test out of it all so you could instead dive in and be over your head right away! A lot of students did this -- so they must also had attended good high schools. Most of them of course had been to high school in the USA.

And I have stayed in the US because there are lots of smart, interesting people here (many foreign or of foreign origin) and lots of freedom to do interesting things.

"Success" really is a combination of opportunity, skill, and drive....and lots of luck. If some people are motivated by a prize, well, that's good for all of us isn't it? Were the efforts of the various X-prize contestants debased by the impetus of a prize?

(Believe me I know what I'm talking about when I say there are crap schools in India! But on the other hand, if I had not moved to Boston, could I have gotten into an IIT? I don't know!)

Re:Chemo not working? Let's try Trepanism! It's ne

[tabrnaker]

except that teens spend more time with their peers than they do with their family. Shut them up at home and don't let them go to school! It would be interesting to see that implemented nation wide.